voices to murder the nightmares
by SerenLyall
Summary: When SG-1 finds themselves prisoners on a strange planet, it is up to Sam to save the day.


**disclaimer: **not mine :(

**rating / warnings:** T / some mature themes and adult language

**notes: **written for tumblr user stargatedrabbles 's Week #19 prompt: Disgrace. definitely turned out to be more than a drabble, but...ehhh who cares. also, be forewarned, this is unedited and was honestly just vomited onto the page and left there... I know it's not my best work, I know there are gaps and things missing, but I'm tired and want this done and posted, so have a half-assed attempt at mediocrity.

* * *

voices to murder the nightmares

_Disgrace. _

The word pounded through Sam's head, all sharp edges and sharper corners. It echoed against the corners of her skull, reverberated between each crevice of thought, resounded inside bone and flesh and tissue.

_You are nothing,_ the voice continued, cold and cruel and slick, like black ice, like bloodied steel, like stained silk. _You will _be_ nothing._

Captain Samantha Carter, second-in-command of Earth's foremost interplanetary exploratory team, SG-1, crawled onwards. The earth was cold against her palms and bare feet, the leaves dead and wet and rotting beneath the towering fir trees overhead. She shivered, the wind cold as it blew between the trunks as big around as five men, her skin prickling beneath her t-shirt and BDU pants as the voice whispered again.

_You are a disgrace, Samantha Carter. You failed your Jolinar. You failed your father. You failed your team._

_I haven't failed them yet,_ Sam thought, as fiercely as she could, and crawled on.

The sky was overcast, deep grey and churning with clouds. The air was cold—colder now, even, than it had been when SG-1 had arrived on the planet, and they had been able to see their breath cloud before them even then—and the wind colder as it whistled through the trees, leaping and laughing down to the earth to tussle the curling, brown ferns and leafless bushes growing up through the hard, frozen ground.

_You have already failed your team,_ the voice went on. _You failed Daniel when you left him alone on the planet for dead. You failed Teal'c when you did not embrace him with open arms when he first arrived on Earth. And you failed O'Neill worst of all._

_How?_ Sam demanded of the voice. A rock caught the palm of her right hand, and she slipped on the wet stone, splitting her palm open. Hot, hot blood ran down her fingers and smeared across the dead leaves, leaving a gash of red against the brown.

An image rose up in Sam's mind, like a window opening amid her thoughts and memories. It was her, sitting in the chair before the Za'tarc-reading machine. It was O'Neill, being escorted down the hall under heavy guard. It was O'Neill, sentenced to death for the sake of her own mind. It was—

_No,_ Sam thought savagely. _No, I saved him. We figured it out. He didn't die._

_Are you certain?_

_We weren't Za'tarc!_

_Are you certain?_

_Yes!_

And then another image, another window opening in her mind, and she was falling, falling, falling through it.

Janet stood at the head of an operating table, O'Neill lying before and beneath her. His eyes were closed as if in peaceful rest—but his head…

_Oh, God,_ Sam thought, and she suddenly retched, pausing in her relentless crawl to vomit miserable bile onto the frozen loam.

_See?_ the voice whispered. _See what you did?_

_You're lying,_ thought Sam.

_Am I?_

"Yes!" Sam shouted, and then clapped a hand to her bitter mouth.

Satisfaction and glee washed through her, starting from her head and crashing down into her curling toes. It was not _her_ satisfaction and glee, however.

Sam pulled herself to her knees before the pool of her bile, then staggered to her feet. As soon as she reached her full height, however, it was as if a heavy weight—an impossible weight, as heavy as stone and iron and concrete—fell on her head and back and shoulders. She gasped for breath, and stumbled and nearly fell.

_No_, she thought stubbornly, starting to walk—and then to run. _No, you won't win. You won't—_

_Ah,_ said the voice, _but I already have._

Sam's head was down, watching the earth beneath her stumbling feet. She dodged a pointed rock, she broke her way through a screen of bushes—she tumbled down a sharp incline and into a shallow creek at the bottom of a culvert. The water was nearly frozen, and Sam broke through a film of frost on the top of the still surface. Her hands and arms and knees and feet soaked through in an instant, the water frigid, and Sam choked.

_How laughable._

Sam looked up—and froze. Standing above her on the creek's culvert was a filmy, shadowy creature. Humanoid in shape, it had no hair. No clothes. No face. It was simply the blurred outline of a human, made of nearly-translucent fog and mist.

"No," Sam whispered, and reaching out for the bank of the small creek, she levered herself to her feet.

_Found you,_ the voice whispered gleefully.

"No," Sam whispered again.

_Yes._

The creature moved with blinding speed, rushing down the bank on unmoving feet. Sam lifted a hand and arm, braced herself for impact—only for the thing to pass through her defenses and run straight through her body.

She fell.

Pain. Pain and more pain. All-consuming, never-ending.

Each nerve was afire. Each bone was splintered. Each muscle was shredded.

Sam screamed.

Fire. Fire before her. Fire behind her.

Fire within her.

There was fire everywhere. There was nothing _but_ fire. She breathed of it, her heart beat of it, her voice screamed of it. She could do nothing but burn, burn, burn…

_No._ Sam pressed her lips together, bit down on the scream bubbling up through her chest and throat and teeth. _No, this isn't real._

_Not real?_ a gleeful voice asked. _Ah, but what is reality but what you are experiencing?_

_Then I'm not experiencing this,_ Sam decided stubbornly. _This isn't real. Therefore, according to your logic, I'm not experiencing this._

_I see… Well done._

Sam gasped and opened her eyes. She was lying on her side in the middle of the half-frozen creek, her clothes soaked, her hair sopping, her skin crusted with ice. The water was crawling into her nose and mouth, half-choking her, and she coughed and spat as she sat up.

_So,_ said the voice. _You are…stronger than we expected._

_I would have thought that was obvious,_ Sam retorted, but tiredly. _I'd already escaped from you once._

_Only because we underestimated your sex._

_You underestimated me again,_ Sam told the voice, and once more levered herself to her feet. The weight returned, pressing down on her even harder than before—and Sam bowed beneath it.

_You will not escape,_ said the voice. _You are too weak to escape us. Too frightened by us. Too—_

_You're wrong. I'll get out—and I'll save my team too._

_It is already too late for them._

_I doubt that._

_Why? You have no proof we have not already killed them—have nothing but my word._

_Sorry, but your word means jack shit to me,_ Sam thought at the voice. _All you've done is lie to me._

_Have I?_

Another window opened, and once more Sam felt herself falling through it.

She was back in the white-walled, white-ceilinged, white-floored room she had been awakened in that morning. The air was crisp and clean and sterile, like antiseptic, like chloroform, like death. Sam wrinkled her nose.

There were four beds in the room, two along each opposing wall to her left and right. One of the beds was empty. The other three were filled with her teammates. All three of them were bound tightly to the bed and were unconscious.

The door to the room opened, and in came a stream of what Sam assumed were doctors and nurses by their garb. They crossed to the beds of the still-captured members of SG-1, and three needled syringes were produced.

"Never fear," said the doctor standing over Colonel O'Neill's bed. "This will not hurt a bit."

The needles were slid into SG-1's arms, the syringes depressed. For a second there was stillness, silence, the expectant breath of waiting—and then O'Neill screamed, his back arching up from the bed's mattress. Daniel followed suit a second later, Teal'c a split second after him. The doctor by O'Neill's bed smiled, nodded, and took a step back.

It was over in a moment. Abruptly, O'Neill's screams died, and he fell flat on his back, utterly still and silent. His chest did not rise and fall with breath; his pulse point did not throb with his heartbeat. He was—

_Dead,_ said the voice. _They died painfully and oh so alone, far from home—far from you, who abandoned them._

_I went to go get help,_ Sam replied, opening her eyes to the creek and the trees and the overcast sky. _I didn't abandon them._

_And look how well that turned out for you._

_I don't believe you that they're dead._

_And why not?_

_You've done nothing but lie to me,_ Sam thought again.

_I'm not lying._

_Yes,_ Sam thought fiercely. _You are._

She began to stumble down the creek, numb feet splashing through the water. She slipped on a wet and mossy stone and crashed into the creek, spraying her face and chest with water—and climbed to her feet again.

_You aren't going to win,_ Sam thought. _I am._

_You have no hope. You are nothing but a disgrace._

_This again?_

_Look at all the times you failed your people. All the people you've been responsible for dying—for killing._

_No._

_Yes._

_I've done nothing but what I had to._

_Of course. But people have still ended up dead. Like your wingman._

_No, I—_

And then she was drowning in thought and memory.

"Permission to fire. Command, permission to fire!"

"_Permission denied, lieutenant."_

"But—"

"_They're attacking, Carter."_

"Shit, fuck, damn. Hold on Emmerson. I'm coming."

"_No, don't, there's too many of them. Finish the mission objective."_

"But—"

"_NOW, Carter."_

Air rushing past her, the roar of engines, the shiver of the jet beneath her seat and feet and hands. Dark spots in front of her, darting around a shimmering silver one. _Faster,_ Sam thought, pushing her jet farther, faster, harder. _I have to get there. Stupid, stupid, stupid of me to suggest breaking up to finish the objective faster. Stupid me, stupid me, stupid me. I have to get there, I have to help, I can't let him die, I can't—_

A blossom of red fire. Orange fire. Gold fire. The crackle of static on the radio. Then: silence.

"NO!"

Sam immediately clapped her hands to her mouth. She stood in the midst of the creek, trembling and bowed nearly double by the weight pressing on her shoulders and head and back. She retched for a second time, miserable and weak, and spat out noxious bile mixed with sour spittle. It swirled away down the stream between her ankles, disappearing into the barely-rippling waves.

_You cannot escape us,_ the voice went on. _You cannot escape the inevitable. You cannot escape your DOOM._

At the last, shrieked word, Sam looked up. And there, bearing down upon her, were several faceless, humanoid forms made of fog and mist.

She turned and ran.

It was nearly impossible. The weight bearing down upon her shoulders, back, and head was enough to crush her to the ground—had _been_ enough to crush her to the ground, not an hour before. It had forced her to crawl, and Sam feared it would force her to crawl again once her stubbornness was used up.

The weight was nothing to the shrieking in her mind, however. It was nails against slate, glass against stone, metal against metal. It was a thousand wailing choruses all singing in agonizing disharmony, a thousand strings breaking, a thousand flutes shrilling discordantly. It echoed and reechoed in Sam's mind, battering her skull and brain, shredding her thoughts. She lifted her hands to her ears as she stumbled, as she fell, as she picked herself up again and forced herself onwards.

Her hands came away bloody.

And still she ran—and still the faceless forms pursued her.

She gasped, staggered, tripped and fell with a splash and a cry of pain. Stones bit into her knees, into her numbed feet, into her elbows as she landed face-first in the water. She stumbled, choked on frigid waves, clambered to her feet once more, dragging in shallow, wheezing breath after shallow, wheezing breath.

_I have to keep going_, she told herself. _I have to keep running. I have to—_

_You are nothing. _The wailing abruptly resolved into words, pointed and clear and painful. _You are nothing but a failure. But a disgrace. How many people have died at your hand? How many have suffered?_

_No,_ Sam thought, and pressed her bleeding palms to her bleeding ears once more. _No, I'm not listening to you._

_You cannot hide from the truth, Samantha,_ the voice keened. _You cannot hide from those you've KILLED._

Emmerson, dead in a flash of orange and gold and red fire.

Martouf, dead on the embarkation room floor.

Daniel, dying on the floor of a Goa'uld mothership.

Teal'c, dying from the insect sting that had nearly transformed him into a dozen of them.

Colonel O'Neill dying amid the dripping, mossy trees of the Nox's homeworld.

A dozen, a hundred, a thousand more: Jaffa dying beneath her bullets, Turghan's blood staining her hands, Seth crumpled and broken in the tunnel floor beneath his mansion.

_Not my fault_, Sam thought. _Not my fault, not my fault, not my—_

_Oh,_ whispered the voice with a thousand strains, _but it is…_

The creek swerved to the right, then to the left, and then, abruptly it emptied out onto a wide, sprawling river. Sam staggered to a halt at the mouth, then whipped around to look over her shoulder.

The faceless creatures came on, slow but steady, their feet unmoving, their forms rippling with the wind.

Sam turned, and plunged into the river.

The current grabbed her and swept her away, dragging her down, down, downstream, her numbed footing lost in an instant. She went under, choking on a stream of bubbles, once, twice, three times. She clawed her way up to the top, coughing and retching against the choppy, half-frozen waves, gasping for breath.

_NO! _the voice shrieked. _NO, YOU CANNOT GET AWAY FROM ME THAT EASILY._

_Dumbass,_ Sam thought. _Did you really think I wouldn't do what I had to do?_

_You are going to die!_ the voice wailed. _You are going to—_

A rock reared up in front of Sam. Too late for her to try to swim out of its way, _WHAM_, she struck it side-first. Something in her ribcage snapped, and Sam screamed out another stream of bubbles as she slid under the waves once more.

_BAM_.

She hit another rock, and felt another rib give way. _CRACK. _A third. _SMACK._ A fourth.

Cough, retch, gasp. Water poured down her chin from her lips, her tongue, her throat, warm and laced through with spit and bile. Sam dragged in one shuddering breath—and then choked as water flooded over her teeth, cold and sharp and clear, and down into her stomach.

_You stupid girl!_ the voices shrieked. _YOU STUPID GIRL. Would it not have been better to live beneath our rule than to die in pain and loneliness?_

_No,_ thought Sam. _No. It wouldn't. Besides, I'm not going to die._

A roar came to Sam's ears. She spun in the current, haphazard and crazed—and caught, for a split second, a glimpse of empty air and mist.

_Shit,_ she thought.

_YOU STUPID GIRL, _the voices wailed.

And then: emptiness.

Sam fell. Fell. Fell over the edge of the waterfall, plummeted through the air for ten feet, twenty feet, thirty feet. Sam screamed.

_CRACK._

She hit the surface of the water beneath, felt her body break.

And then: darkness.

When Sam came to, it was to mud and cold water. She blinked, looked up at the churning sky, then looked down at herself.

Blood and mud and water soaked her through, staining her clothes and skin a mismatched smear of red and brown. She groaned, then used her one good arm to shove herself up into a sitting position. Her entire body throbbed, protesting the movement, and for a moment the world danced a spritely jig around her, swooping and hollering in a shrill, piercing whine. She leaned over and vomited for what felt like the hundredth time that day, and only straightened once more—with stars popping in her vision, with colors dancing over her eyes, with fire racing up and down her ribs and spine and dislocated shoulder and hip—when there was nothing left in her stomach to throw up.

"Fuck."

_So._

"Shit."

_You survived. Impressive._

_You'd be amazed at what the human body can withstand,_ Sam retorted silently.

She levered herself to her feet using her one good arm and leg. She tottered for a moment, on the brink of falling over or screaming—or maybe both—before she clenched her teeth and her stubbornness and forced herself to stand tall. She hobbled once pace from the water's edge, two paces, three paces, to the forest's edge. There she stooped, and picked up a stout tree branch that had fallen from the tree above her.

Using the branch as a cane with her good arm, Sam began to make her way through the forest once more. She was lost, the stream having whisked her beyond her ability to maintain direction, and now only hoped that she would prove lucky in her search for the Stargate.

The walking slowly grew easier, her steps lighter, her mind clearer through the pain. Sam sighed a breath of relief—and then froze.

_No_, she thought. _No, this is bad._

She turned—and immediately it felt as if she was walking into a wall. The weight returned to her mind, to her back, to her shoulders and head. And the voice—_God_, Sam thought, despairing, _not again._

_Disgrace,_ the voice whispered in her ear. _Failure. You are nothing but damnation._

Sam gritted her teeth and began to walk.

The night was somehow even worse than the day.

Mind clouded with pain, with the beginnings of fever, and with the voices constantly reminding her of her about her darkest pains, the only thought left in Sam's mind was _Find the Stargate._ Once there, she could dial the Alpha Site, and they could get her home. Home, where she could get help, both for herself and for her team.

One step. One step. One step at a time.

Left foot forward. Hobble a step. Left foot forward. Hobble a step.

The farther Sam went, the harder it grew. And as the forest darkened around her, so too, it seemed, did her mind.

_You will never succeed,_ whispered the voice. And, _This will be nothing more than another failure in a long line of failures._

_You're a disgrace._

_You're an embarrassment. _

_You're nothing but a curse to those around you._

The sun set behind the clouds, leaving the world cold and dark and desolate. Sam wound her way through the darker shadows that were the trees, stumbling and staggering and tripping and falling time and time again. She screamed more than once, as her dislocated hip or arm were jostled, and she wept bitter tears of frustration and pain and despair as the night wore on, endless and seething.

_The sun is gone._

_The sun is gone,_ the voices repeated. _Gone. Eaten by the night. It will never shine again._

_The sun is gone,_ Sam thought, despairing. And, _I'll never make it. I'll never find it. I'll die out here, alone and afraid and in pain, and my team won't survive either, and what little hope they had will be gone, and—_

_Gone,_ the voices whispered. _Gone, gone, gone…_

It was nearly dawn by the time Sam noticed the figures following her. They were grey, mist and fog, faceless, hairless, featureless. Their feet did not move, but still they glided forward, passing through tree and bush and fern alike, as if they were nothing more than smog.

"No," Sam whispered, upon seeing them. "No, please…"

She tripped, paying too much attention to the forms and not enough to where her feet were going. She fell, crashing painfully onto the forest floor, and yelled as her dislocated arm took half of the brunt of her weight. Darkness swept over her, stealing her eyes, thieving her heart for one, brief second of time.

And then her sight cleared, and her heart returned, and she could see and feel once more.

She tried to stand. She grabbed onto her tree branch, and planted it in the frozen loam. She sought to hoist herself upright. She attempted to heave herself to her one good foot.

She failed.

The weight was too much. The voices too strong. Her fear too palpable.

_Fine_, Sam thought, turning over. _Fine._

She began to crawl.

It was agonizing. She either held her injured leg up, off of the ground; or she dragged her wounded knee along behind her, carving a furrow into the frozen leaves. She could only use one arm, and so hobbled her way along, all the while holding her dislocated arm against her chest.

Five feet. Ten feet. Twenty feet.

It was excruciatingly slow. Sam wondered why the figures did not catch her and stop her.

In her mind, the voices laughed.

_Oh, Samantha,_ they crooned. _Oh, Samantha…_

The sun rose. The morning waxed, and waned.

And still, Samantha Carter crawled.

She was hungry. Thirsty. In more pain than she could remember being in for a long, long time.

But still, Samantha Carter crawled.

_Stop._

_No._

_I said stop._

_And I said no._

_Samantha…_

_Don't call me that._

_Very well. You have made your point. Now stop._

_Never._

A sigh.

_You are killing yourself._

_And is that not what you wanted?_

_Yes_, said the voice. _It is what we wanted. Once._

_Once?_

_Yes, once._

_But not now?_

A hum, as if thought made sound. _Perhaps not._

_Perhaps not?_

_You are delirious._

_No, I'm not._

_You are close thereto, then._

_No, I'm not._

Another hum, this time one of disapproval.

_Stop, Samantha._

_I said not to call me that._

_Stop, or you will run head-first into the Stargate. _

Sam blinked, then looked up.

And yes. Yes, there was the Stargate, hulking and round, a black shadow against the shadow of the trees.

_Oh._

_Now rest._

_But my team—_

"Carter? Oh, God, Carter!"

_We tried to kill you,_ said the voices—every thousand of them suddenly harmonious where before there had only been discord. _We tried to kill you, because that is what we do to every person who desecrates our land by stepping onto it._

_Then why am I still alive?_

_Because you proved more tenacious than we anticipated. Because you earned our respect when you survived the waterfall, and not only did you not give up, but returned to face us again, even knowing what you were going to suffer._

"Carter! God—Daniel, dial home. We have to get her back to Doctor Frazier ASAP."

_It has been many centuries since someone earned the right to live from us._

_Any one of us would have done the same._

_We believe that,_ said the voices. _Somehow…we believe that._

_Farewell now, Samantha,_ whispered the voices. _If ever you are in need of us, you know where to find us._

"It's going to be okay, Carter. We're gonna get you home."

Then there were hands beneath her, lifting her, and the smell of Colonel O'Neill's soap and aftershave permeated the haze swallowing Sam whole.

"It's okay, Carter. I've got you."

_Farewell, Samantha. Until we meet again…_

Sam blinked her eyes open to the SGC's yellow-lit infirmary. She turned her head, and saw Daniel and Colonel O'Neill both sitting asleep in chairs pulled up to her bedside. Teal'c sat in a chair on the other side, eyes closed in kel nor'eem.a

Suddenly, Teal'c's eyes opened. He looked at Sam, and smiled one of his half-smiles that meant more than a thousand sunrises.

"Hi," Sam croaked.

"Greetings," said Teal'c. "How do you feel, Major Carter?"

"Like I've been kicked by a horse," Sam replied.

Teal'c inclined his head. "That does not surprise me."

"What happened?" Sam asked.

"We had hoped that you might enlighten us," said Teal'c.

Sam frowned. "What do you mean?"

"One moment, we were asleep—and then the next, we were being led by the protectors of the planet's peoples to the Stargate. There we found you, half-dead and pulling yourself along with one arm toward the Stargate."

"Oh," said Sam. "I don't…really remember that part."

"I am unsurprised," said Teal'c. "You are suffering from a concussion, as well as severe internal bleeding, multiples broken ribs, lacerations, contusions, and two dislocated joints."

"Right."

There was a pause. Then Sam asked, "Did you hear any voices?"

"Voices?" Teal'c canted his head to one side, then said, "No. I heard no voices while on the planet."

"I see," said Sam. "Okay."

"Why do you ask?"

Sam shrugged—and then regretted it. "No reason," she said. She smiled at Teal'c. "Thanks," she added.

"For what are you thanking me?" Teal'c asked.

Sam shrugged again—and again regretted it. "For sticking with me," she said. "For not abandoning me. For being here when I woke up."

"You are the one who did not abandon us on that planet."

Sam raised her eyebrows. "It sure seemed like I did."

"You were going for help, were you not?"

"Well, yeah."

"Then you were not abandoning us. Quite the opposite in fact."

Sam smiled again. "Thanks, Teal'c."

"You are most welcome, Major Carter. Now sleep."

Sam closed her eyes, and listened to her teammates' breath even out as Teal'c reenterd kel nor'eem. She thought of the voice—the voices—whispering to her. She thought of the pain. She thought of the harsh words, and the visions, and the memories.

Sam drifted off to sleep, the voices' final words echoing in her mind.

_Until we meet again…_


End file.
